Time machine backup problem: mDNSResponder[16]: ERROR: getOptRdata - unknown opt 4

Thanks for your reply Pondini. And also, first things first, thank you upon thank you for all the work you put into pondini.org. That's been an invaluable resource for me (and I'm sure many others) trying to get Time Machine working again.

To answer your questions: Yes, I have repaired the backups as you suggest in #A5a. (And I've verified the internal HD per #A5). Also, the backup disk is set up properly, per #C1. And, per #D2's green box suggestions, I have gone through steps 1-5 and 9-13 (concerning step 14, I couldn't find any firmware updates), and I reinstalled OS 10.5.8.

On the "backup canceled" message: I believe that was because I just told it to "stop backing up." I did that because it seemed "hung" after the first 9MB of backed-up material and then an ensuing 15 minutes of nothing. In the past, when I've left it on its own when it's in a state like this (for a couple of hours, usually), I'll come back to the computer at some point and find a blank blue screen showing only the mouse pointer with the fans "whirring" like crazy. It's like something times out and then freezes (despite the fact that in system preferences, I have told it not to go to sleep and "unchecked" the "put the hard disk to sleep when possible.")

In fact, it did this timeout thing tonight, again: I started time machine at 19:45, let it be for a few hours, and then I came back to the infamous blue screen, at which point I killed it with the power switch. Looking at my system log from 19:45 to 21:50, something indeed seems to have timed out:

Jun 12 21:49:25 MacNagles-MacBook kernel[0]: PM notification timeout (pid 845, ATSServer)

(or is this just when I held the kill switch down? don't know.)

It also looks like at 20:37 something initiated the external HD disk to eject:

Jun 12 20:37:23 MacNagles-MacBook loginwindow[36]: DEAD_PROCESS: 0 console

Jun 12 20:37:23 MacNagles-MacBook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[2186]: Stopping backupd to allow ejection of backup destination disk!

And after that it looks like it tried to start a new back up process again:

Jun 12 20:38:01 MacNagles-MacBook fseventsd[41]: Events arrived for /Volumes/Time Machine Backups after an unmount request! Re-initializing.

And then a bit later, it seems like it started the actual backup again:

Jun 12 21:16:30 MacNagles-MacBook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[2412]: Starting standard backup

(I could post more of the log from those times to give more context, but it's kind of long, and my guess is that it's probably kind of tacky to post long lists of log files in help forum like this when nobody has really asked to see them.)

Also, thanks for your explanation of the mDNSResponder etc. messages. (Bummer. I thought I was on to something... It is still put out this message a lot in the most recent back up I tried.)

My plan for tomorrow is to try to let the computer take as long as it wants to back up, but periodically check it every half hour so it doesn't try to time out or go to sleep (even though I've told it not to) or whatever it's trying to do when it goes "blue."

It that doesn't work, I'm not sure what I'll do. I know the computer is almost 4 years old, but it's never acted like an ornery "old computer" with problems until this stuff started happening.

If you any other thoughts, I'm all ears. Regardless, thanks again for the fantastic resource that you have created for us laypeople. As far as I'm concerned, Apple Support Communities should give you 100,000+ points, emperor status, and a cash bonus every time you login.

- Mark

My backup drive is this: Simpletech 320gb. It's old, I know: from 2007 or 2008. I feel lucky it's lasted this long. But after trying a backup on a brand new Western Digital "My passport for Mac," it did something similiar as described above: slowed down after the first 3gb (of 84gb), and I let it be, then came back after 45 minutes to check it, and the computer was frozen.

Honestly, I don't know if I installed any drivers. I looked through my applications folder etc. and didn't see anything.

Tried on another drive today (brand new WD "My passport for Mac" 1TB), and it did something similiar as yesderday: froze, as described above to BDAqua.

To answer your question about Lion or Snow Leapord: no, there's no other computers on my network with that OS. Just this one, an HP printer, and an occasional iOS device.

I haven't tried Safe Mode yet, or the Hardware test. I will get back to you after I've had a chance to try them.

Thanks again!

Short story: Time machine works fine on both drives now. Thank you for your help.

The fix seems to have been uninstalling / deleting all things related to Dropbox. (Note: just excluding it from TM backups did not work).

Longer story: As a follow up to the earlier suggestions: I did the hardware test and the safe mode backup attempt. No problems in the hardware test. In safe mode, the backup did really well until about 39GB of 84GB, at which point it hung itself. The message that appeared in the system log the moment it got hung was this:

Jun 14 09:56:17 MacNagles-MacBook /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Frameworks/ATS.framewo rk/Support/ATSServer[466]: ********* Bad On-Memory Font Detected ********* (fontID = 131143)

Jun 14 09:56:17 MacNagles-MacBook mdworker[467]: Unable to use font: no glyphs present.

Jun 14 09:56:17 MacNagles-MacBook /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Frameworks/ATS.framewo rk/Support/ATSServer[466]: ********* Bad On-Memory Font Detected ********* (fontID = 196679)

Jun 14 09:56:17 MacNagles-MacBook mdworker[467]: Unable to use font: no glyphs present.

(I assume there was a problem because safe mode affects the fonts ?)

Regardless of this failure, the clue was that drop box didn't start up in Safe Mode and that the backup proceeded very nicely until that hanging point. That led me to try deleting dropbox, etc. And things worked from there.

I don't know why Dropbox would cause a problem, even though I had excluded it from the TM backups; nonetheless, having deleted the application and the dropbox folder seems to have cured the interminably-slow-backup-to-crashing problem.

The mDNSResponder error still shows up periodically during backups, but it seems to be appearing less now in my successful backups. Not sure what that means either. Regardless, the problem seems fixed.

Thanks again, Pondini. You are the time machine Jedi GrandMaster.

Over and out.

I am pretty sure I originally excluded the hidden folder, as suggested in #D8.

I can't tell, though, now that dropbox is gone. (And I'm not sure I care to bring it back...).

Yep. It was the hidden / "invisible" ".dropbox" folder that was excluded. Tried backing up again, with dropbox reinstalled and all visible/ invisible dropbox things excluded, and TM, again, wants to hang itself.

To dropbox I say: good riddance.